fellas - this afternoon i put the timing light to my elky, what i found has me puzzled.

at idle the light showed i have 14dgs advance! (factory set is supposed to be 0 advance) the puzzler is that when i rev up, total advance only goes to about 22 dgs (a guess since the timing tab doesn't show that far).
this is an hei car with no vacumn advance.

i know the idle advance COULD be attributable to a haromnic balancer with 180K miles-though that would seem to be a lot of slop, even for one that old-but only getting another 6 to 8 dgs as you throttle up doesn't seem quite right.

the car has always run great (i've had it for 40K miles) i even get about 26mpg hwy so i've never checked the timing (if it ain't broke, don't fix it - though i did put new plugs, wires,coil, rotor and cap in about 30K ago), but 2 mos ago i had the whole car painted (it looks great-flames!), before they sprayed the car the painters took a high pressure spray to the engine compartment. something happened right there. since then it hasn't run quite right - a little bump in the idle and 21mpg on my last highway trip. i've looked all over the engine bay, disconnected, sprayed, cleaned and re-connected any electrical connection. the same for any of the vacumn lines. the idle is now a bit better, but still that little bump that it never had-and the lousy mileage.

i borrowed a friends compression gauge and timing light to check eveything over before i started with EGR - rebuild carb and so on. who knows, it may be time for an engine. i only got as far as checking the timing for now.

anybody have any thoughts or guidance for me?

thanks in advance for the help - and don't forget to donate to the new server so this site can get up to speed like our elkys

Did you disconnect the lead to the computer when you checked the timing? If you do not disconnect the lead to the computer, the computer will advance the timing. You need to disconnect the lead, start the engine, then check the timing. At idle it is suppose to be 0 degrees, but I have had good performance with as high as 6 - 8 degrees. I have found total timing to be just about what you are reading.

K5 - thanks for the reply. no, i didn't disconnect anything-the only connection i found was a snap connector with multi-wires, i was sure that if i unsnapped it i would have no voltage to the dist. and consequently no start. is that the connector i shold look for? is there another i've missed?

also when you advanced 6-8 degrees did your total advance increase as well? it just seems to me that total advance should be more than 22-24 dgrs. though i could be wrong (it's happened before!)

again, thanks for the help!

Do you have a large cap distributor with the in-cap coil, or the small cap distributor with external coil? If I recall correctly, the 87 ignition set-up is different than 86. If your El Camino still has the ignition timing sticker on the radiator core support, it should give you directions to find the four pin connector and disconnect it prior to checking the timing.

On my 87 I have a small cap distributor with an external coil. The four pin connector on my 87 is mounted on the body of the distributor. On your 86, I believe the four pin connector will be located on the passenger side of the engine. Trace the wires from the distributor and look for the four pin connector. With the engine off, disconnect this connector, start the engine, then set the timing to 0. As I stated previously, I've had good luck with 6 to 8 deg. BTDC if you want to advance it a little. Once you've set the timing, turn the engine off, plug the connector back in, and then disconnect the negative side of the battery. This will clear the computer of the check engine light you would have gotten while checking the timing with the computer lead disconnected. Reconnect the negative battery cable after a few minutes, and then you're good to go.

K5Cruiser-that worked! thanks for the info. i bumped it up to 4BTDC and threw in a fresh set of plugs as well. i don't know if it actually helped or if i just want it to, but it seems a little more reponsive to the pedal now

I also have an 86. had the same issue, sluggish off the start, minor knocking. Ran okay on the highway. looked at the timing, with connector not connected. way advanced (15 degrees-ish). impossible to retard it close to 0 BTC, w/o pushing dist to its stops. Changed cap-rotor-plug-wires. Still not quite right. Played with a few things (knock sensor, ESC, even a new computer). nothing different.

Then I read in a chevy magazine that the distributor has a "limp" mode, whereby it advances the spark about 10 deg, even if thing are broke.
Dug a little deeper into the distributor. pulled the dist. ign. module (mine is 7 pin). took it to autozone, tested bad. That was a surprise, since in my 80' fords, the cars wouldnt run with a bad module. Bought a new one, and a condensor. was going to do pick-up coil too but would have had to remove distrib. I think.
Anyway, replaced the ign. module, and that solved the problem.
Still having occasional issues with the idle boost solenoid staying ON. Not sure of that problem, as I also just had the stock Q-jet carb rebuilt. could use some advice on that, as I saw that question on this site too, but no answer.

I think if your heater/ac control is in any of the ac or defrost positions it will keep the idle boost on. Also if equipped with a power steering pressure sensor it could be bad keeping it on.

edit: I just noticed that this put me over the 500 mark on posts. I have got to quite typing so much. LOL